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Rice attorney to WASHINGTON -- The attorney who successfully represented Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice in his U.S. Supreme Court challenge of Hawaiians-only voting in Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections has been named an aide to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
be Ashcroft aide
Theodore Olson will be nominated
U.S. solicitor generalBy Michael J. Sniffen
Associated PressThe White House yesterday confirmed that President Bush intends to nominate Washington lawyer Theodore B. Olson to be solicitor general, supervising government appellate work including Supreme Court arguments.
Also yesterday, Bush selected Atlanta lawyer Larry D. Thompson to be deputy attorney general. Both nominations require Senate confirmation.
Olson would be in the leadership of a Justice Department that under President Clinton had argued before the Supreme Court in support of special rights for Hawaiians. The Justice Department under Clinton also supported U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka's bill to give native Hawaiians the same federal relationship that native American Indians have.
Olson and Thompson have played roles in some of the biggest Washington controversies in recent years.
Thompson was a behind-the-scenes adviser to Clarence Thomas during his contentious Supreme Court hearings in the Senate a decade ago. Olson was the lawyer who won the Supreme Court decision on Florida's presidential voting that sealed Bush's victory.
Thompson, who was President Reagan's U.S. attorney in Atlanta during 1982-1986, was a key adviser during the tumultuous Senate confirmation battle over Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991. A native of Hannibal, Mo., Thompson, 55, began his legal career alongside Thomas at Monsanto Corp. in St. Louis.
Like Thomas, Thompson is black, as is Washington lawyer Charles A. James, whose nomination to head Justice's antitrust division could be announced later this week, an administration official said today.
Administration officials have said they hope the presence of two blacks among the first three nominations to serve under Ashcroft will help rebut allegations from Democrats and civil rights groups during Ashcroft's own stormy confirmation last month that he was insensitive on racial issues. Ashcroft interviewed all candidates, aides said.
While his work on behalf of Thomas was unlikely to please civil rights organizations, Thompson resigned in 1999 from an advisory board to the Southeastern Legal Foundation in disagreement over its lawsuit against Atlanta's minority contracting program. Thompson said he supported affirmative action.
Joseph Lowery, chairman of the Black Leadership Forum in Atlanta, has said he "would not put him in the same bag with Clarence Thomas or John Ashcroft" because he has more moderate views.
Thompson also served as an independent counsel investigating the Housing and Urban Development scandal during the Reagan administration.
U.S. Public Law 103-150